ADAMS COUNTY — A long-vacant parcel of dormant farmland in unincorporated Adams County will be transformed into a multiuse regional park after years of planning and fundraising.
The Hyland Hills Park and Recreation District, based in Federal Heights, broke ground Thursday afternoon on Clear Creek Valley Regional Park, an 81-acre project that will include a large community garden, sports fields, exploration and adventure play areas, an imagination playground for younger children, regional trails, and pond fishing once it’s complete.
Officials in Hyland Hills, the district that manages Water World, hope the park will become its newest flagship destination by the end of 2016.
“The community has been waiting a long time for something to happen on this large area and, with our partners, we have something unique and special planned,” said Joann Cortez, Hyland Hills district spokeswoman. “A large community garden will be built with the intent of preserving and continuing the which heralded there since 1910.”
To further honor the heritage of the land, the park’s amenities and signage will be designed with a historical and agricultural theme. The groundbreaking itself featured a “walk behind” plow that was pulled by two Belgium draft horses named Winston and Bryce.
Cortez said that after a dozen years of planning, fundraising and land acquisition, Clear Creek Valley Park is “easily one of the district’s most complex projects.”
Voters passed a bond issue in 2002 to purchase 86 acres of the land, located directly north of Interstate 76 between Tennyson and Lowell Boulevards, for $4 million. Hyland Hills will spend $1.25 million to develop the park. All told, the first phase of construction will cost $6 million.
At that time the bond issue passed, “the district was hearing from residents in the southern part of the area who were expressing a desire for open space and the preservation of the agricultural history and character of their local area as well,” said Nick McCoy, president of the Highland Hills Park and Recreation District Board of Directors. “We are standing on the site of a destination playground that will creatively capture the central theme of the rich agricultural history of Clear Creek.”
A huge part of the land will remain open space (only about 30 percent is being developed).
Five acres of the initial land purchase was sold last year to Wanco Inc., an Arvada-based business that manufactures highway safety and traffic control products, so that the company could expand its headquarters after they ran out of space in Arvada.
The after the land deal.
Other funding sources for the park include the Colorado Adams County Open Space Tax fund, the Colorado Garden Foundation, Great Outdoors Colorado and the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District.
“It’s a fabulous property and a much-needed amenity in this part of the Hyland Hills District,” said Yvonne Fischbach,Hyland Hills’ executive director.
Megan Mitchell: 303-909-8463, mmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Mmitchelldp
